Saturday, May 11, 2013

Kennesaw crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based
on data from 11 years with violent crime increasing and property crime
increasing. Based on this trend, the crime rate in Kennesaw for 2013 is
expected to be higher than in 2010.

For example, of the 1,082 women and 267 men killed in 2010 by their
intimate partners, 54 percent were shot by guns. Over the past quarter
of a century, guns were involved in greater number of intimate partner
homicides than all other causes combined. When a woman is murdered, it
is most likely by her intimate partner with a gun. Regardless of what
really caused Olympic track star Oscar Pistorius to shoot his
girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp (whether he mistook her for an intruder or
he snapped in a lover's quarrel), her death is only the latest such
headline. Recall, too, the fate of Nancy Lanza, killed by her own gun in
her own home in Connecticut by her son, Adam Lanza, before he went to
Sandy Hook Elementary School to murder some two dozen children and
adults. As an alternative to arming women against violent men,
legislation can help: data show that in states that prohibit gun
ownership by men who have received a domestic violence restraining
order, gun-caused homicides of intimate female partners have been
reduced by 25 percent.

So his argument is that those people wouldn’t have been killed if a gun
wasn’t available? That an emotionally unstable person wouldn’t have just
as easily snapped and murdered their partner with a kitchen knife, a
bat or a car? That’s where Michael’s logical train of thought ends: he
apparently believes that if the guns had disappeared, those people would
be walking around today. That they wouldn’t have resorted to other
means of murder, as the 46% of victims in that statistic were. No,
everything would be just peachy if only we’d get rid of the guns.

No one says that without guns NONE of those domestic murders would have happened. What we say is that not as many would have. It takes a mighty biased and defensive gun-rights fanatic to deny this.

A Des Moines man told police he fired a gun into the air to scare a group of juveniles who had attacked his fiancee.When officers arrived, they found David Kevin Walker Jr., 29, standing in front of his house, unarmed. Police detained Walker without incident.Walker
told police his fiancee had walked outside their house and yelled
across Dean Avenue for their neighbors to quiet down. A group of
juveniles ran across the street and attacked the woman, Walker told
officers.They dragged her to a corner of the intersection of East
16th Street and Dean Avenue and began punching her in the face, Walker
told officers. He said he grabbed his gun and ran toward the group,
firing two shots into the air.The juveniles stopped and ran away after he fired the shots, he said, and Walker put the gun away in his home.Walker’s fiancee had a bloody nose and bruising and swelling to her face.Walker was charged with reckless use of a firearm.

A farmer who became a household name after he was jailed for shooting
dead a burglar at his home today revealed he had confronted another
intruder.

Tony Martin, 67, who was jailed for killing teenager Fred Barras in
1999, said he caught a burglar in the act near an outbuilding at his
property in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, yesterday.

He said he
confronted the would-be thief who drove off, but decided against trying
to stop him, adding: “I couldn’t face going through all that again.”

He told Sky News: “There were weapons inside the shed so, if I had wanted to fight him off, I could have.

“I wished I had but, after everything I’ve been through in the past, I just couldn’t face all that hassle again.

“It isn’t the first time it’s happened since I’ve been out of prison - it’s happened two or three times.“I
haven’t changed my views about what happened in 1999 but the whole
experience has made me lose faith in the system and I didn’t want to be
made out as the criminal again.”

The gun-rights fanatics love to blow this one up into something more than it is. What's missing in the UK is the presumption that anyone breaking into your house is demonstrating lethal threat by the very fact of breaking in.

The Castle Doctrine in its many forms is based on the worst possible case. A burglar COULD intend to kill or harm therefore all burglars are eligible for immediate execution. Taken on a case by case basis, as with Mr. Martin in 1999, it's obvious that lethal threat is often not operative.

It's telling that in the case Mr. Martin is lamenting about, he was able to chase the burglar away without killing him.

If he wants to be able to kill people on the slightest pretext and get away with it, he should move to Georgia in the US.

Kinsler Allen Davis, 2, was taken to Navarro Regional Hospital and
then flown by helicopter to Children's Medical Center in Dallas, where
doctors pronounced him dead.A preliminary investigation shows the boy found the handgun inside a
bedroom and fired it. The bullet hit him in the head, Chief Bratton
said. The boy's father was in another room of the house when the
shooting happened.

Carlile has been on paid administrative leave since March 2012, when
his toddler son found a handgun and fatally shot his 7-year-old sister.
Carlile had left the gun in the family van while the children were
unattended.Carlile had been charged with second-degree manslaughter after the shooting, but the charge was dismissed after
a Snohomish County jury was unable to reach a verdict after a trial in
Snohomish County Superior Court at the end of last year.Carlile, 32, and his family were in a rush to get to a wedding when
they stopped off at a friend’s antiques shop in Stanwood on March 10,
2012. Carlile and his wife had left their four children in the van alone
for a few minutes when their then-3-year-old son found a loaded
.38-caliber revolver that Carlile had left in a cup holder between the
front seats.

Carlile’s son got out of his booster seat, grabbed the gun and shot
his sister Jenna in the abdomen. She died at a Seattle hospital.

Firing a gun in which any part has been made in a 3D printer
could result in the death of the user, a specialist has warned, because
the plastics in the gun would not stand ballistic pressures and stresses
– and so might disintegrate.Jonathan Rowley, design director of London-based 3D printing specialist Digits2Widgets, issued the warning
on the company blog after being approached by two UK newspapers – the
Mail On Sunday and the Daily Telegraph – that wanted him to "print" a
gun using the files generated by Cody Wilson in the US earlier this week
on his company's commercial printer.Rowley fears that the nylon
used to create the designs would be unable to withstand the explosive
force of the bullet ejection and that the "gun" could explode, shooting
plastic shards that could harm users and bystanders.Philip
Boyce, an independent firearms expert at Forensic Scientific in
Thetford, said: "It all depends on how hard the plastic is. You might
get one of these to fire 10 to 20 shots before it gives up the ghost. It
would just disrupt - the barrel would fall apart, the chamber would
fall apart." The accuracy of 3D printed guns is also under question
because the barrel would wobble as the bullet passes through it.Boyce
says the existence of files to create such weapons is something people
"definitely should worry" about: "normally criminals can only get
converted blank-firing pistols. But if they have plastic weapons they
can get a few shots off, which is all they want."He says: "We fear that the next story will
be about a child blowing their hand off while experimenting with a 3D
printed gun … This type of accident is the immediate danger of the
project and will happen long before anyone is deliberately killed by one
of these tools."Wilson, 22, has managed to produce a gun
using a commercial 3D printer which successfully fired a shot – but in
testament to his own nervousness about safety, he used a piece of string
20ft long attached to the trigger. He has now released the files for
making the gun onto the internet so that anyone could "print" their own
using a printer.That led to approaches from the newspapers, which
Rowley has turned down flat. "Nobody has done any testing on these
materials in regard to high pressure and explosives," he told the
Guardian. "All that Wilson has proved is that with one particular
machine and one particular material he's produced something that doesn't
blow his hand off. He's giving the impression that these files can be
used by anybody." That, he says, is enormously risky. "None of our
industrial 3D printers run the same type of plastic as used by Cody
Wilson." Though the parts might look superficially similar, "the way
they would perform under firing would be totally unknown".3D
printing uses materials which can be heated using computer-controlled
design systems to form extremely thin solid slices, which are then built
up layer by layer to form solid objects. Its principal advantages are
that it can be used building prototypes, generating one-off designs and
even making shapes that cannot be made by standard injection-moulding
systems.Wilson spent almost a year
developing the "Liberator", a "wiki weapon" that can be put together
from parts which can be printed in a commercial printer. He hopes that
his files will lead to "a complete explosion of all available gun laws …
I think we should have the right to own all the terrible implements of
war".

Rowley says Wilson has "abstract libertarian philosophy that
proposes that anyone has the right to own anything" and that he
"doesn't appear to care" about the potential widespread use of 3D
printed guns by individuals.

But Rowley argues that making the
files available is far more dangerous to those who download and try to
use them than to those who might have such guns aimed at them. "If you
look at these files, there are all sorts of attached text documents
about how to put them together, but nothing about the materials you must
use for it to work or the printer you need to employ. It's highly
irresponsible, but there are plenty of fools who will jump at the chance
to have a go."

He said he could not ethically agree to produce
the guns for the newspapers: "Anyone would be putting their life in
their hands if they used these."

And this is what the pro-gun folks are all excited about? Typical of them - they couldn't care less about the dangers involved, so besotted are they with the prospect of guns for everyone. And the ones talking the loudest won't be the first to blow their fingers off. That'll be done, and soon too, by the more gullible followers of guys like Robert Farago and Kurt the Superman.

Authorities have discovered the pickup truck of an "extremely dangerous" Northern California man who they say is the prime suspect in the triple homicide of his wife and two daughters.

Shane Franklin Miller is considered heavily armed and dangerous, according to the Shasta County Sheriff's
Office. The 45-year-old is believed to have gunned down his family at
their home in rural Shingletown, Calif., about 230 miles northeast of
San Francisco on Tuesday.

"There is a manhunt for him right now. He's a prime suspect. We're not looking for anybody else," Lt. Dave Kent said. "We found several different types of weapons, ammunition in the house, so he may be heavily fortified at this time."

Police have launched a nationwide manhunt for Miller.

The bodies of Miller's wife, Sandy, 34, and two daughters, Shelby, 8,
and Shasta, 4, were discovered after a call was received from the
family's residence just before 8 p.m. It is unclear who placed the call,
but authorities said that it came from one of the victims while the
shooting was in progress.

Another gun owner gone berserk. The simpleton response we ALWAYS hear about a California story is how could this happen in California where they have strict gun control.

Well, part of the reason is they don't have strict gun control. Compared to Arizona and Nevada, perhaps, but not in my book they don't.

I was curious about this debating style utilised by Greg, and Tennessean, who after they have shown me that their comments aren't worth my time, believe that they have somehow "won" the argument if I don't bother response.

Getting the last word means that you win the debate. It also shows
your moral superiority, and willingness to stand your ground. This
should convince your opponent that you are correct, and will certainly
impress your fellow Wikipedians.

It is particularly important to get the last word where you are in
some doubts as to the merits of your case. The last word will serve as a
clinching argument that will make up for any deficiencies in your
logic. Achieving the last word now also brings the advantage that you may subsequently point to your success in this debate as the clinching argument in future debates. However, if you did not win the last discussion, we still recommend claiming incessantly that you did.

The Consensus seems to be that it's generally important to the one who is in the wrong to get the last word: That's the only way the can perceive victory.

I'm happy that you believe that you have somehow "won" when in fact you have only firmed up my opinion that reading blog opinions is a waste of my time.

Overall, the Justice Department report said, firearm-related homicides
dropped from 18,253 homicides in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011, while nonfatal
firearm crimes declined from 1.5 million in 1993 to 467,300 in 2011. The
drop extended to schools: Homicides at schools declined from an average
of 29 per year in the 1990s to an average of 20 per year in the 2000s.

This is why the gun-nuts must hang onto those absurdly high DGU estimates. Even without suicides, we have on the order of a half-a-million gun crimes REPORTED. The true number is obviously much higher.

In order to exceed that number for defensive uses, they have to include every possible incident, many of which are actually offensive and criminal, and then they have to factor in a whopping 95% for estimated brandishing events.

Greg Camp Sez: 1. You give us a link to statuatory interpretation, but fail to
recognize that we're talking about the constitutional interpretation:

Well, Greg, it IS a legal document. And it was written to those rules.

That
is a comment which is the equivalent of "why do I need to know grammar
when I write?" or "Why do I need to know the rules of chess?"

An even shorter simpler answer, Greg, anyone who watches crime TV shows knows more about the law and legal method than you do.

In analyzing a statute’s text, the Court is guided by the basic principle that a
statute should be read as a harmonious whole, with its separate parts being
interpreted within their broader statutory context in a manner that furthers statutory
purpose. The various canons of interpretation and presumptions as to substantive
results are usually subordinated to interpretations that further a clearly expressed congressional purpose.

from Statutory Interpretation: General Principles and Recent Trends, Congressional Research Office, Order Code 97-589.

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803): said that

The subsequent part of the section
is mere surplusage, is entirely without meaning, if such is to be the
construction…It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution
is intended to be without effect; and therefore such construction is
inadmissible, unless the words require it.

Rules of statutory interpretation regarding the proeme, AKA the first clause of the Second Amendment.

If words happen to be still dubious, we may establish
their meaning from the context; with which it may be of singular use to
compare a word, or a sentence, whenever they are ambiguous, equivocal,
or intricate. Thus the proeme, or preamble, is often called in to help
the construction of an act of parliament. Of the same nature and use is
the comparison of a law with other laws, that are made by the same
legislator, that have some affinity with the subject, or that expressly
relate to the same point.

That gets back to my comment that Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 expressly gives CONGRESS the power to ARM the militia. Looking at the document as a whole, the Civic Right (not my interpretation personally, but the one which was accepted until Heller threw the law into flux).

I also talk about a concept called desuetude, that is where laws become obsolete. Many laws have sunset clauses written into them.

The best way to make sense of the Second Amendment is to take away
all the commas (which, I know, means that only outlaws will have
commas). Without the distracting commas, one can focus on the grammar of
the sentence. Professor Lund is correct that the clause about a
well-regulated militia is “absolute,” but only in the sense that it is
grammatically independent of the main clause, not that it is logically
unrelated. To the contrary, absolute clauses typically provide a causal
or temporal context for the main clause.
The founders — most of
whom were classically educated — would have recognized this rhetorical
device as the “ablative absolute” of Latin prose. To take an example
from Horace likely to have been familiar to them: “Caesar, being in
command of the earth, I fear neither civil war nor death by violence”
(ego nec tumultum nec mori per vim metuam, tenente Caesare terras). The
main clause flows logically from the absolute clause: “Because Caesar
commands the earth, I fear neither civil war nor death by violence.”

Diagramming the Second Amendment, one should end up with something that
expresses a causal link, like: “Because a well regulated militia is
necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to
keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” In other words, the
amendment is really about protecting militias, notwithstanding the arguments to the contrary.

In his Rudiments of English Grammar (1790), Noah Webster writes
that “a nominative case or word, joined with a participle, often stands
independently of the sentence. This is called the case absolute.”
Webster gives several examples, including, “They all consenting, the
vote was passed.” He explains, “The words in italics are not connected
with the other part of the sentence, either by agreement or government;
they are therefore in the case absolute, which, in English, is always
the nominative.” Grammatical independence, to Webster, is not about
political self-determination, it's all about the nominative case. But he
would acknowledge without hesitation that the vote would not have
passed without the consent of the voters.

Webster’s readers would have had no difficulty recognizing that the
Second Amendment also begins with an absolute. They would have studied
the absolute in school, and they had probably been tested on it in a
federalist-era version of No Child Left Behind.

Any educated
federalist also would have learned in school that government, in
grammar, merely refers to the case of a noun – its inflection as a
nominative, dative, genitive, accusative (or, in the case of Latin, an
ablative). As Robert Lowth, the author of the most widely-studied school
grammar of the time, put it, “Regimen, or government, is when a word
causeth a following word to be in some case, or mode.” For example,
prepositions cause the following noun or pronoun to take the dative
case. Or as the schoolbooks liked to say, prepositions govern the
dative. That’s why we say, “Give the gun to me,” not, “Give it to I.”

Anyway, since the clause "a well regulated militia is
necessary to the security of a free state" announces the purpose for the right, We need to go back to the citation from Blackstone regarding the “proeme, or preamble” since it is
part of a larger section that consists of “observations concerning the
interpretation of laws.” 1 Blackstone at 58. One of those
“observations” was: “BUT, lastly, the most universal and effectual way
of discovering the true meaning of a law, when the words are dubious, is
by considering the reason and spirit of it; or the cause which moved
the legislator to enact it. For when this reason ceases, the laws itself
ought likewise to cease with it.” 1 Blackstone at 61.

Blackstone refers to this “when the reason ceases, the law ought to
cease” principle several times in the Commentaries, which would seem to
indicate that he considered it a fairly important interpretive
principle. 2 Blackstone at 390-91 (discussing property interests in
tame and domestic animals and noting “But here the reasons of the
general rule cease, and ‘cessante ratione cessat et ipsa lex‘
[The reason of the law ceasing, the law itself also ceases]“), 3
Blackstone at 219 (discussing the law of nuisance, and noting “But,
where the reason ceases, the law also ceases with it : therefore it is
no nuisance to erect a mill so near mine, as to draw away the custom,
unless the miller also intercepts the water.”), 4 Blackstone at 3
(noting that some aspects of Britain’s criminal law “seem to want
revision and amendment” and explaining that “These have chiefly arisen
from too scrupulous an adherence to some rules of the antient common
law, when the resons have ceased upon which those rules were founded . .
. “), 4 Blackstone at 81 (discussing the law of treason, and noting
that the “plain intention of this law is to guard the blood royal from
any suspicion of bastardy, whereby the succession to the crown might be
rendered dubious: and therefore, when this reason ceases, the law ceases
with it . . .”), 4 Blackstone at 330 (discussing the plea of a former
attainder, and noting “But to this general rule however, as to all
others, there are some exceptions; wherein, cessante ratione, cessat et ipsa lex.”).

In other words, the phrase "a well regulated militia is
necessary to the security of a free state" is already the sunset clause written into the Second Amendment.

By saying that this clause is no longer applicable, you have said that the reason for the Second Amendment no longer exists. Thus, the Second Amendment died roughly the time that Story said:

That's why people like Greg and the Five fools want to see it neglected. The problem is that The Second Amendment was pretty much an irrelevance well before it was written. See Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter I (Of the
Expences of the Sovereign or Commonwealth), PART I: 16-27 (Of the
Expence of Defence) for a critique of the miltia system from 1775.

Anyway, Constitutional interpretation IS statutory interpretation. It is a statute, one of the first drafted by congress.

Where does this leave us?As
a well constructed sentence, the Second Amendment says this: the people
have a right to bear arms, inasmuch as that pertains to forming a
regulated militia to secure a free state.Nothing more, nothing less.What of the right to personal self-protection?Who knows! — the Second Amendment does not talk about that.The
main clause, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not
be infringed”, cannot be read without the preceding absolute — otherwise
the Founding Fathers would have omitted that absolute.(I
take it as given that they included in the Constitution only those
words that they thought should be there and be interpreted; that they
didn’t insert window-dressing or fluff.)Moreover,
assuming the Founding Fathers were rather well educated, none of them
would have misunderstood the limiting condition that the initial
absolute put on the concluding main clause.Importantly it sets the topic: the militia, not the individual.We
can certainly hem and haw as to the meaning of individual terms in the
Second Amendment — “militia”, “well regulated”, “the people”,
“security”, “infringed”, “arms” — but we should be crystal-clear as to
the grammar.If one thing is
manifest, it’s that the initial absolute puts a limit on the
applicability of the main clause; the latter cannot and should not be
interpreted without the former.

It's just that something like that is above Greg's level of intellect.

Most private gun transfers in Delaware will soon be subject to the same background check rules currently applied to sales by licensed dealers, according a measure signed into law today by Gov. Jack Markell.

The signing comes on a day when several other pieces of a Democrat-sponsored package of gun control bills are facing committee action in the General Assembly. The background check law is the first piece of the package, introduced earlier this year, to win passage.

Effective July 1, private gun sellers will be required to obtain federal background checks
on buyers, except in cases where a firearm is being transferred to a
close family member, a law enforcement officer or the holder of a valid
concealed-carry permit.

The background checks will be performed on behalf of private sellers by federally licensed firearms dealers, who may charge a fee for the service.

“Today we are closing the private-sale loophole once and for all,”
Markell said. “No longer will we have two different markets for the sale
of firearms, a regulated market for dealers and an unregulated market for everybody else.”

Now what the hell was so difficult about that? What in the world is the pro-gun objection to this little bit of tyranny? How exactly does it violate the spirit of the 2nd Amendment?

The website, TheyDontWorkForYou.org,
pairs all 46 senators who voted against the amendment with victims of
gun violence. It encourages readers to call the senators, tweet at them,
or post messages on their Facebook pages.

After launching on April 22, the campaign has spread through
different advocacy organizations, such as Moms Demand Action. It has
also earned the firm congratulations from organizations like the Michael
Bloomberg-backed Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

A 3-year-old boy died after shooting himself with his uncle's gun in a Tampa apartment.

Hillsborough County Sheriff's officials say the boy's uncle,
29-year-old Jeffrey D. Walker, was arrested late Tuesday and charged
with culpable negligence.
Sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter says Jadarrius Speights found the
unsecured 9 mm handgun in a backpack in a bedroom he shared with his
uncle. The child's parents - Jasmine Bell and Trentin Speights - were in
the bedroom with the child when the gun went off.

Officials say Walker purchased the gun at a gun shop in the Tampa area and has a concealed weapons permit.

I suppose this is another of the one-in-a-million concealed carry permit holders who weren't really responsible.

The truth is, obtaining a permit to carry is so easy that many of the folks who have them are no more safe and responsible than other gun owners.

This photo provided by the Brighton,
Ala., Police Department shows Marquis Rashad Abernathy of Midfield.
Police have issued two warrants against Abernathy, whose stolen gun was
linked to a 4-year-old boy's accidental shooting. Lt. Ray Hubbart of the
Brighton Police Department said Wednesday, May 8, 2013 Abernathy is
charged with receiving stolen property and reckless endangerment. The
boy's mother and another adult were watching television Saturday when
they heard gunfire in another room and discovered the boy had been shot.
(AP Photo/Brighton Police Department)

A 4-year-old boy who was accidentally shot in the head when a gun discharged at a home was responding Wednesday to voices and squeezing nurses fingers at Children's of Alabama hospital in Birmingham, police say. While the boy remains in the Intensive Care Unit in
critical condition, his relative, Marquis Rashad Abernathy of Midfield,
is wanted on warrants for reckless endangerment and receiving stolen
property. Police say he left on a bed the pistol that discharged. It was
found by the boy who was shot and his 4-year-old female cousin, police
said.Brighton Police Department Lt. Ray Hubbart said the boy's mother, who is the girl's aunt, dropped by a relative's home to
change a diaper. Abernathy wasn't there, but had spent the night there
and left the handgun in a back bedroom.As the mother chatted with a relative in the living
room, the children went into the bedroom to prepare to change clothes.
The adults heard a "pop" and the little girl ran out of the room. The
boy's mother ran to the bedroom and called 911. The boy was rushed to
the hospital and doctors determined a bullet had entered and exited his
head, said Hubbart.

Well, I hate to point out the obvious, but a guy who looks like that just cannot leave a gun lying around without being held accountable for it, not in Alabama, anyway.

The Senate has rejected an effort to expand the use of firearms on
the heavily visited lands of the Army Corps of Engineers in a
congressional victory for gun control supporters.The vote for the proposal by Sen. Tom Coburn was 56-43 for the legislation, but that fell short of the 60 votes needed.The measure would have let people carry guns onto Corps property for
any legal purpose. They currently can only be used there for activities
like hunting or target shooting.The agency oversees nearly 12 million acres containing dams, lakes
and trails used for recreation by 370 million visitors annually.

So, what is this? Is it the bone they were supposed to throw us last time?

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Please explain how a document which states as its purposes is to "form a more perfect Union...insure domestic Tranquility" (Preamble).

Then makes it clear that the role of the militia is "execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions" (Article I, Section 8, clause 15).

We need to add in Article IV, Section 4, the Domestic Violence Clause:

"The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a
republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against
invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive
(when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence."

This provision in our Constitution requires that the federal
government protect us from harms that we inflict upon ourselves, harms
that threaten our health and our survival: in particular domestic insurrections.

Finally, Article VI:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

That rules out "natural law" as being legal precedent (as well as other documents such as the Declaration of Independence in addition to misquotations from the founding fathers) .

With the real kicker being Article III, Section. 3:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Constitution seems pretty clear that insurrection is not a right.

Next we come to Amendment II:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed.

Now, I need to keep reminding you of the rule of construction:
Expressio unius est exclusio alterius.

"The expression of one thing is the exclusion of another." That is items not on the list are impliedly assumed not to be covered by the statute or a contract term.
However, sometimes a list in a statute is illustrative, not
exclusionary. This is usually indicated by a word such as "includes" or
"such as."

None of that is present in the above passages.

Simple form since I know the calibre of intelligence here:

If the statute mentions it--it is covered.

If the statute don't mention it--it ain't covered.

In this case, we do not see anything in the Second Amendment which mentions "fighting tyranny" (as it also lacks any specific mention of personal uses such as hunting or self-defence).

The rules to this are simple and found here.
BTW, using the rules, in particular, Internal and external consistency, where it is presumed that a statute will be interpreted so as to be internally consistent. That is, a particular section of the statute shall not be divorced from the rest of the act.The Second Amendment applies to the Militia based upon Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 granting congress the power to ARM the Militia.

Please explain how things which are not specifically can be legally
covered? How do you read into the text things which not only aren't
present, but are inconsistent with the document?

I can't wait to see the idiotic comments you will make--especially Greg who will show his ignorance of law, yet be all too willing to pontificate despite his lack of knowledge on the topic.

Authorities in Salem say a man who heard a prowler grabbed a rifle to
investigate and ended up accidentally shooting himself in the jaw.
The sheriff's office says the 71-year-old Salem man, Frank Moore, is expected to survive.
Moore told deputies he was awakened by someone moving outside his recreational vehicle about 4 a.m. Tuesday.
He said he took a .22-caliber rifle out into the dark and tripped. Wounded, he knocked on a window to awaken his wife.
Deputies said they found the rifle where Moore told them he'd dropped it, but there was no sign of the prowler.

I suppose this is one of those true accidents that Tennessean is talking about? What do you think?

Investigators probing the random killing of three people in the
town of Istres, near Marseille, believe the suspected killer bought the
Kalashnikov rifle he used in the shooting over the internet, a report in
the French media claimed on Friday.

One of the victims, a man
thought to be in his sixties, was shot dead at the wheel of his car, the
other two were male pedestrians, both local men aged 35 and 45
respectively.

A witness to the incident described how the
19-year-old suspect had walked around with his rifle poised "as if he
was out hunting" and might easily have killed more people.

The
suspect was arrested not far from the scene and remains in police
custody. French radio RTL reported on Friday that a source close to the
investigation had suggested that he had bought the military style weapon
online.

If this is confirmed it will put more pressure on
France’s Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who visited the scene of the
shooting on Thursday. Valls has vowed to crack down on the growing
problem of gun crime in France.

Local news reports, further to our earlier story in which we called his charges a "slap on the wrist." Greg insisted that even with the lesser charges the guy would become disqualified for gun ownership.

A Mercer County man pleaded and was
sentenced Monday for accidentally shooting his young relative after
mistaking her for a skunk.
Thomas Edward Grant, 25, of 35 Lightcap Lane, Jackson Center,
pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of simple assault and reckless
endangerment.

A charge of aggravated assault was dismissed in
February after a judge agreed with a defense motion claiming there was
“proof of malice” on Grant’s part to support the felony charge.Beaver County Judge Harry Knafelc sentenced Grant to
serve two years’ probation and to pay restitution to the victim’s
family. Grant’s hunting privileges have also been revoked during his
probation.Grant’s attorney, Steven Valsamidis, said the victim’s family was in agreement with the plea and sentencing.Grant was charged by New Sewickley Township police following the shooting the night of Oct. 20 at his mother’s Brewer Road home.
Police said Grant fired a gun thinking he was shooting at a skunk when
there was actually an 8-year-old girl wearing a black-and-white
Halloween costume who was playing hide-and-seek in the distance.

It seems Greg's comment was not only dripping with condescension but actually wrong.

Mikeb, if you'd try some basic research, you'd look smarter. In
Pennsylvania, it's illegal for anyone convicted of a crime of violence
to own a firearm.

Your unwillingness to look at simple facts is one reason that you'll never succeed in your goals.

As I said initially, the gun-rights fanatics take care of their own. Charges are reduced in order to allow the negligent and dangerous gun owner to continue owning guns. I realize some of them learn their lesson and for the rest of their lives are extremely careful. But, I also realize that the person who demonstrates the carelessness and stupidity to do something dangerous with a gun often cannot learn any better. It's in his nature.

It's disgraceful and what's even more disgraceful is guys like Greg lie about it insisting it's just not true.

Young people today didn't grow up with this. No wonder they have no sense of direction.

We can be together
Ah you and me
We should be together
We are all outlaws in the eyes of America
In order to survive we steal cheat lie forge fuck hide and deal
We are obscene lawless hideous dangerous dirty violent and young
We should be together
Come on all you people standing around
Our life's too fine to let it die and
We should be together
All your private property is
Target for your enemy
And your enemy is
We
We are forces of chaos and anarchy
Everything they say we are, we are
And we are very
Proud of ourselves
Up against the wall
Up against the wall(motherfucker)
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls
Come on now together
Get it on together
Everybody together
We should be together
We should be together my friends
We can be together
We will be
We must begin here and now
A new continent of earth and fire
Tear down the walls
Come on now gettin' higher and higher
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls
Won't you try

Why couldn't a Civil
War soldier hit anything? The average Civil War
soldier could not hit the proverbial bull in the behind
with a bass fiddle. Training would have helped, but
training in marksmanship was something woefully lacking in
most commands during the Civil War. Little time or
ammunition was allocated to actual range practice—and many
recruits went into battle without having fired a single
practice round. Little wonder that pounds of lead were
expended for each hit made, that many a man fired his
piece, unaimed, into the blue, or that front-rank men,
their ears ringing or their beards singed, were known to
turn about and pummel their overzealous rear-rank
comrades. What made hitting
a target extremely difficult was the high trajectory of the huge
chunks of lead thrown by the old rifled muskets. Ranges
had to be correctly estimated and sights carefully
adjusted for anything but the very closest ranges. A
bullet fired by a kneeling man at the belt buckle of a man
running toward him at an estimated range of 300 yards
would just pass over the head of a man 250 yards away.
Thus, if the shooter had overestimated the range by as
little as 50 yards he would have missed.

Sorry I couldn't make it to the annual meeting. I'm a Life Member and
I try to get there every year. But this year is different. If I showed
up you'd tried to get me to help you fight a "culture war." But if there
is a war going on, you represent the wrong side.

I just watched your speech.
I think it's time you dropped this nonsense about protecting our
"rights." Be honest and tell it like it is. The reason you're opposed to
background checks has absolutely nothing to do with the Second
Amendment. It's about making it as easy as possible for everyone to own a
gun. More guns means more profits for the gun companies, and that's who
you really represent.

In 2011, Ruger's stock was trading
at $21 a share, now it's at $51. Smith & Wesson's stock was three
bucks a share, today it's almost nine. I remember after the 2010
elections when it looked like the Obama administration was going to be
toast, gun dealers like myself couldn't give away the inventory. Now we
can't keep anything on the shelves. You keep referring to the president
as an enemy of the gun industry. The truth is that Barack Obama is the
best salesman the industry ever had.

And the reason he's such a good salesman, Wayne, is because you and
your allies have spent the last 20 years making every gun owner believe
that the only reason we have any gun laws at all is because the
Washington "elites" want to take away all our guns. So when a tragedy
like Sandy Hook occurs and well-meaning people react to such senseless
violence by looking for ways to make it harder for guns to get into the
wrong hands, you and the other "protectors" of the Second Amendment get
right to work convincing responsible gun owners that such laws are aimed
at them. You are protecting illegal and "irresponsible" gun owners,
and lumping them in with the majority of legal gun owners who are
careful with their weapons. That's because an irresponsible gun owners'
money is just as good for gun companies as a responsible gun owner, and
you want to protect your market share, even at the expense of innocent
lives.

It's easy to cloak yourself in a holier-than-thou mantle of God-given
rights to avoid looking at the facts. And the facts are that
private-citizen vigilantism doesn't protect anyone from gun violence; it
actually results in more violence and deaths. It's easy to disparage
the 90 percent of Americans who are in favor of expanding background
checks by telling your audience that some unnamed Congressman from some
unnamed state hasn't gotten any calls. But maybe the time has finally
come when most Americans are more worried about ending the 100,000+
firearm deaths and injuries than whether you and your NRA cult of
followers can Stand and Fight.

For all your talk about defending liberty Wayne, I'll give you
something more important to defend: the young children whose lives
always seem to take a back seat to how many guns you can get Americans
to buy. I'm talking about children at Sandy Hook, a 4-year-old in New
York, a 2-year-old in Kentucky. There's something immoral about denying
any connection between the deaths of children and the explosion in gun
sales that you claim show how much we love our freedom. I'd rather have
those kids alive, even if it costs me more than a few bucks in gun
sales. I joined Evolve so I could be part of an organization that wants
gun owners and non-gun owners to lead with solutions that can talk about
saving human lives and preserving our Second Amendment rights. That's
patriotic and that is a future worth fighting for.

I suppose an apology is in order. All my Southern friends who are offended by my frequent references to "hillbillies" and "hicks," are absolutely right. Idiocy knows no geographic boundaries. Just, get a load of these Minnesota characters coming out of the gun show.

A new front is emerging in the debate over gun control in the US, as some members of Congress seek to ban firearms that can be made through the technology of 3D printing.

The technology opens the door for people to create guns, using plans downloaded from the Internet, that could elude detection in security screenings at places such as airports.

3D printers are becoming increasingly common as tools for making
three-dimensional objects out of plastic or similar materials, much the
way a traditional printer applies ink to paper based on instructions
from a computer.

Controversy about the
technology’s use in making guns revved up in recent days, with a private
group that dubs itself the “wiki weapon project” preparing to release
plans for constructing a handgun that could be made almost entirely with
a pieces from a 3D printer.

The gun can operate with 16
printed parts and one nonprinted component, an ordinary nail used as a
firing pin. According to news reports, the gun also has a compartment to
insert a six-ounce piece of steel - to make it visible in a metal detector, as required by the Undetectable Firearms Act.

“Security checkpoints, background checks, and gun regulations will do little good if criminals can print plastic firearms at home and bring those firearms through metal detectors with no one the wiser,” Rep. Steve Israel (D) of New York said in a statement released Friday. “When I started talking about the issue of plastic
firearms months ago, I was told the idea of a plastic gun is
science-fiction. Now that this technology appears to be upon us, we need
to act now to extend the ban on plastic firearms.”

Where have I heard that before, "a plastic gun is science fiction?"

I suppose, like Congressman Israel, I must admit at this point that there's something to this 3-D printing of guns. Further, considering the way computer technology advances so rapidly, I suppose the costs involved will soon make the fancy printers available to the general public.

But, I'm still missing the point? Why is this so important to the gun nuts? Is it the solution to that bizarre fantasy of total government tyranny? Short of that, given the availability of guns today, what's the point?

This article seems to imply that it's criminals who will benefit most, being able to beat metal detectors? Why are lawful gun owners so interested?

Pincus asks the members assembled where they thought gun safes should be located, in the interest of home defense."How about putting a quick-access safe in your kids’ room?" Pincus
asks. "We have an emotional push back to that. Here’s my position on
this. If you’re worried that your kid is going to try to break into the
safe that is in their bedroom, with a gun in it, you have bigger
problems than home defense."As the group laughs, Pincus explains that in a home invasion
situation, it makes sense to have a gun stored in a bedroom you're
instinctively moving to defend."If that alarm goes off and the glass breaks and the dog starts
barking, what’s the instinct that most people are going to have, in
regards to, 'Am I going to run across the house to get the gun, or am I
going to run over here to help the screaming kid?'" Pincus said. "And if
I’m going to go to the kid anyway, and I have an extra gun and an extra
safe, why not put it in their closet?"

Joshua Duehr is one of more than 50 sex offenders in Iowa who can carry a gun in public."I don't leave the house without one," said Duehr, who lives in Dubuque.

It's legal — and it's news that has surprised some state lawmakers and alarmed a few Iowa and national law enforcement officers.

"It
does seem to go contrary to what the whole point or the whole purpose"
of the sex offender registry is, said Steve Conlon, the deputy unit
chief of the FBI Behavioral Science Unit's Evil Minds Research Museum in
Quantico, Va.

"I've never even heard of anybody looking into this arena," Conlon said. "You're in some unchartered grounds."

Some,
if not most, applications by sex offenders for permits to carry weapons
would have been denied by county sheriffs before 2011, according to
officials from the Iowa Department of Public Safety. But sheriffs no
longer have discretion to reject such applications.

The article goes on to explain what's wrong with allowing sex-offenders carry guns. Their crimes often depend upon intimidation and coersion. In my opinion these guys should be disqualified just as domestic abusers are.

Four people have been killed and six others injured in a drive-by shooting in Puerto Rico.Police said in a statement Saturday that a 45-year-old woman and her
17-year-old daughter are among the victims. Police say they were part of
a group gathered at a barbecue restaurant in the central mountain town
of Aguas Buenas late Friday when unknown gunmen began shooting into the crowd.Police say one of the injured people is in critical condition.No one has been arrested, and police say they don't yet have a motive.The U.S. territory of nearly 4 million people reported a record 1,117 homicides in 2011.

I didn't realize they had so many mureders. That should qualify them for statehood right away.

The Texas House approved a bushel of bills Saturday to further soften
gun laws that were already among the country's most firearms-friendly,
allowing college students to carry handguns in class, putting
potentially armed marshals in public schools and exempting the state
from any future federal bans on assault rifles, high-capacity magazines
or universal background checks.Dubbed "gun day" by supporters and opponents alike, the parade of
votes came as tens of thousands of members of the National Rifle
Association attended the group's annual convention
in Houston. Gov. Rick Perry welcomed convention attendees Friday with a
video of him taking target practice using a semi-automatic rifle.The 12 approved gun bills must all clear final, procedural votes
before heading to the state Senate. Still, they advanced with only
minimal delay, cruising past Democrat-led efforts to block or stall
them. Nearly all were approved by simple voice votes.A Democratic parliamentary point of order managed to shoot down just
one, a bill by Rep. Van Taylor, R-Plano, that would have allowed the use
of a concealed handgun license as valid proof of personal
identification -- even though obtaining such licenses requires a
background check that's not necessary to get driver licenses and many
other forms of ID.The fiercest debate in the Republican-controlled chamber came over
the plan to allow students over 21 who already hold concealed weapons
permits to take their handguns into college classrooms. The issue became
exceedingly volatile during the last legislative session in 2011, and
ultimately failed.

Authorities say a 24-year-old Colorado man accidentally shot himself while cleaning his handgun.

Police say the man, whose name has not been released, was sitting in his
vehicle in Colorado Springs when he spilled soda on the gun Saturday
afternoon. The man wiped the gun clean, and the weapon accidentally
discharged as he was replacing the magazine.

He was taken to a hospital in fair condition after suffering injuries to his left hand, left thigh and left calf.

Local news reportsA woman who accidentally shot her husband Friday in Monaghan Township will not be charged, police said.The woman was
examining a .22 caliber handgun when it fired, striking her husband in
the side of his chest, police said.The handgun was one of several firearms that the husband had removed from the couple's attic. The woman did not know the gun was loaded.